Alan shifted groggily as the first ray of sunlight slipped through the cracks in his blinds, its luminescence clawing at his eyes. A threat to face the day. As with any afternoon like this, he thought he would roll from his left side to his right, his body a sodden, rotting log, curved like an “S” that somehow insinuates cutlery, but when his left arm tried to lead him there and shield him from the sun, it was faced with some resistance. Not much, but still enough to startle his body to a slightly higher form of consciousness than that booze-induced coma he was in. He aware of his flesh, and his flesh now aware of its surroundings, Alan felt something sleek and smooth, cold and curved, held tightly against his body like that terrifying clown he used to cuddle with as a child. What was his mother thinking when she gave that to him, anyway?

The crack of dried saline and gunk compounded with the thudding in his head as he peeled his eyelids up, opened just enough for him to make out the shape of things beside him: an empty handle of Evan Williams bourbon. He’d crammed enough forensics knowledge into his head during that semester that even despite the horrific hangover he was still able to deduce that said hangover was likely due to the presence of said bourbon absent from said bottle and even more likely being processed somewhere between his liver and soul. Content with solving the mystery of the missing bourbon, and discovering the identity of the mysterious shape asleep beside him, Alan felt accomplished enough to complete his turn away from the window and fall back to sleep.

He closed his eyes before his bourbon-slowed mind could fully comprehend the significance—or even the presence—of the used condom sprawled on his hardwood floor like the sad and lonely shreds of the balloon that Jesse Hird popped at his 6th birthday party. Not that Alan was bitter or anything. The thought of this childhood trauma was finally enough to shake him from his slumber, and Alan sat up more abruptly than he likely should have. Blood rushed to his head with the thud of an angry fist against an oak door. Or maybe a baseball bat.

Once he was able to think again, Alan realized that perhaps the night’s conspiracy reached deeper than he previously thought. Especially since he was still wearing pants. Was he living in an episode of Californication? Alan had always idolized David Duchovny, but more for Fox Mulder than Hank Moody. The X-Files was his inspiration for moving to Washington, D.C., and pursuing a Forensics degree, in hopes of one day becoming an FBI Agent, and discovering for himself if the true was really out there after all. But if life should imitate art, he wondered, then perhaps his life was changing along with the career of the artist whom he imitated.

This threw him into a panic. A crisis of faith. What had he been doing with his life? He had only ever seen the Series Premiere. He would have to catch up on all the seasons on DVD. How many seasons had there been so far? The X-Files had nine! How many more would they have by the time he caught up? And when would he find the time, now that he had to leave George Washington and transfer to some school in California to pursue an English degree. What the hell was he going to do with an English degree?

For a moment, he wished there was still bourbon to drink, but the mere thought of it made his stomach churn and sent him hurtling towards the bathroom. Perhaps Californication would have to wait.

There is a brilliant art to dancing in your underwear. It is important no matter which gender you may occupy, to wear something supportive. Nothing will make this joyous activity travel to the other extreme like the damage ones genitals can suffer from insufficient protection. So buckle up…it’s the law.

The next tip to remember is not to get dressed. Clothing will give you the impression that you should act according to its mandate. A dress suit and air drums do not mix, they are the oil and water of underwear dancing. There is an animalistic freedom in the lack of covering that will give your limbs the go ahead to perform actions they may not think themselves possible. Underwear Dancing has the power to transform a Frankenstein into Mary Lou Retton.

Music. While it is inherently the most integral part of the event, there are only certain artists, which are currently cleared by the board for use in the sport. They are as follows:

Journey Bon Jovi

Def Leppard Poison

KISS Joan Jett

Guns and Roses The Scorpions

Rush AC/DC

Heart Twisted Sister

Queen Alice Cooper

Foreigner REO Speedwagon

…and Styx (You know damn right well if Mr. Roboto comes on and you’re in your tighty whities, you’re singing. So shut it.)

While there are many other artists who will certainly make you want to “rock out”; unless the band’s career was marred by chemical excess, hair with the volume equivalent to my chest cavity, massive sexual exploits, and not a single unprocessed sound on their album; they are posers.

The final thing to remember when engaging in the craft is to be aware of your surroundings. Take into account that when your reenacting Slash’s guitar solo at the end of ‘November Rain’, you will most lieky care more about hitting that high E than the location of your scissors, paper cutter, or sharp pointy things box. Realize that no one wants to go to the ER looking like Tom Cruise in Risky Business. Stick near beds or couches, they make for great places to crowd surf, while offering little risk of puncture wounds.

So get out there and enjoy. Support, Starkness, Soundtrack, and Safety…these are the four ‘S’s…say them the next time you feel a session coming on, it may make the difference between magic and misery.

Left hand rested on the right, pointing ahead over your own, you throw body in a dive, pushed off at the legs, quickly tucked into a curl, into a ball before you SPLASH! hit the surface with a crackle, with a crunch, sending fiery waves crashing over the curb, flooding on the sidewalk. You could have incited a brushfire if you’d cast away your cigarette closer, but perhaps today’s your day.

“WATCH OUT FOR THE…pavement…,” she starts to shout with a wince, then she looks away when you make impact. “…or that homeless guy,” she quips when she returns her sight to you. She watches you swim with a look between endearment and embarrassment and ignores the crinkling cacophony you’ve made of the previously still autumn air.

“C’mon in!” you cry out. “It’s a beautiful night!” and she raises her left eyebrow in that incredulous way you find so irresistibly alluring.

“I’m pretty sure you’re swimming in hobo piss,” she counters straight-faced as you back stroke through the leaves. You stop, you shrug, you smirk and you keep swimming.

And you stop. Stuck. Frozen. Petrified like prehistoric insects trapped in amber. A look of sheer panic washes across your face. She thinks you’re kidding for a moment but you freeze your breath and suddenly it’s serious.

“…”

“What’s wrong?”

“I think I’m stuck,” and that frog in your throat snaps and croaks when you exhale.

She quickly looks around, confirms there’s no one else in the park, and offers her hand. “I told you to watch out for those creepy crazy homeless guys. They’re ever being homeless—everywhere that’s not a home, I guess.”

She shrieks only briefly through that bright, startling smile when you pull her to the ground and she thrashes through the leaf pile for a moment like the victim of a shark attack before that gorgeous laughter overcomes her and she breathes again.

“Now I’m caked in hobo piss. Thanks for that,” she groans, her eyes rolling into the ethereal arch of a brilliant crescent moon.

“Don’t blame me,” you say and stroke her hair behind her ear. “You don’t often get to float on dead clouds.”

And here it is. It’s for the USC crew team. Go, Trojan Navy. Do it to it.

——-

USC Crew Team Begins Season with Promising Results

With the fall collegiate rowing season just getting underway, the USC Men’s Crew (The Trojan Navy) is already exhibiting signs that they are poised to have one of their strongest showings in years.

The team’s season opened this past weekend at the Newport Autumn Rowing Festival in Newport Beach. With sixteen different collegiate teams represented in a field of thirty eight-man boats, USC’s varsity eight finished fifth in the field and ninth overall, besting the top crews from regional competitors University of San Diego, Loyola Marymount, UC-Irvine, Arizona State, UCLA, and national powerhouse Orange Coast College, to name a few.

“It was a great showing,” said coach Danny Johnson, who comes to the Trojan family after rowing competitively for Orange Coast and UC-Berkeley in the past. “This race marks a true turning point for the team.”

Men’s rowing was a varsity sport at USC throughout the post-war era, strong from its inception in 1948 and running continuously until 1993. In that time, it produced a number of storied competitors, including Conn Findlay, who went on to win three Olympic medals – two of them golds – in paired oar-shell competition, and Julian Wolf, who managed the 1984 U.S. Olympic rowing team. The intercollegiate squad folded in the early 1990’s due to Title IX, only to be revived at the turn of the century as a club sport.

As a non-NCAA-affiliated organization, the team has had to as spend much of its time fundraising as training these past few years. Luckily, it seems those efforts are finally starting to pay off. Though they are still working to pull together enough capital to buy a new boat, they were recently able to purchase two used eights – both of which have seen multiple national championships – from the training fleet of UC-Berkeley. And though they’re not as swift as spring sport racing shells, it appears they’re already making an impact in the water.

“We were able to surprise the team with the boats on the day before the event, and I think it made a huge difference,” said Coach Johnson. “The varsity had a great race, with a thirty-three strokes per minute pace. As a pure point of comparison, we lost to UCLA last year by twenty-seven seconds, and this year we managed to best them by twice that. A one-and-a-half minute turnaround in a fifteen-minute race – that’s something.”

With three eight-man teams in the water – including a JV boat and a Novice squad that, despite some early-term errors, also turned in solid races – The Trojan Navy has shown solid improvement from years past and looks to the coming season with well-earned sentiments of promise and pride.

Their next race is the ’09 Head of the Harbor, hosted by USC and featuring squads from Arizona State, Orange Coast College, Loyola Marymount, UC-Irvine, UCLA, and UC-Santa Barbara. The event, which takes place on November 15th, will be held at the Port of Los Angeles in Wilmington, CA and will begin at 9:00 A.M. For more information on spectating the event, call (949) 677-9145.